The outage comes days after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed pledged to improve the country’s internet service.

Abiy Ahmed knows about internet blackouts.

Ethiopia’s state-owned provider had cut off the country’s service for three months before he came to power last year.

He vowed that Ethio Telecom would be broken up and privatized.

It hasn’t happened and it appears the parastatal has switched off to stop high school pupils from cheating at their exams.

Nearly 16% of Ethiopia’s 100-million population have access to the internet.

So the country  has some way to go to catch South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria for connectivity.

But those online are the major earners.

Being cut off delivers the country an economic body blow.

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